


Saints Preserve Us

by Astarloa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Case Fic, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Hurt Dean Winchester, Mark of Cain, Sam Winchester to the Rescue, Supernatural Summergen Fic Exchange, The Fates - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 19:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16102751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarloa/pseuds/Astarloa
Summary: Dean has convinced Sam that Mark of Cain or not, he’s still perfectly capable of a straightforward salt and burn. Hint: he may have exaggerated slightly. Meanwhile, the Fates are locked in a bureaucratic battle with Heaven over the supply of basic utilities and are just generally dysfunctional. These things are not unrelated.





	Saints Preserve Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dizzojay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dizzojay/gifts).



> The effects of the Mark of Cain differ slightly from canon, while the Fates are (very) loosely drawn from Greek mythology and Atropos in 6x17. Basically, all you need to know is that Atropos is responsible for cutting the thread of life while her sisters, Clotho and Lachesis, spin and measure the threads respectively. Dizzojay, hopefully this captures the spirit of your prompt(s), if not the exact letter!

_Sweetview Cemetery - Roanoke, Virginia_

They pulled into the empty car park, dimmed headlights swinging over a sign stained with graffiti tags. Tyres slid on wet gravel as Dean hit the brakes. His fingers felt stiff, circulation sluggish after hours spent gripping the wheel too tightly. He let the engine idle.

“Um, Dean? I think we’re here,” Sam said, shifting against the leather seat. His eyes narrowed. “You good?”

“Peachy as a cobbler.” Dean forced himself to move, turned off the ignition and hit the lights. 

Sam took a long look out of the window. “You sure about this?”

“Jesus, Sam. Give it a rest, okay?”

“Then explain to me again what we’re doing here.”

“Working a gig?” Dean said, raising an eyebrow. “You know, that thing we do with the weapons and the killing.”

Sam snorted. “What, like the fire you were convinced was evidence of a poltergeist and turned out to be a drunk electrician?”

“I still say there was something fishy about that guy. Seriously, who the hell decides to take a piss on exposed wires?”

“An alcoholic.”

Dean grunted in response. 

“You’ve got us chasing cases like Sherlock Holmes with ADHD, man. And now with the Mark - “ Sam cut himself off, his unspoken words lying heavy between them. He sighed. “Look, we’ve still got some of Bobby’s contacts. I could put a call out, see if there’s someone in the area who can handle it.“

“Yeah, there is,” Dean snapped. “Us.” 

“There are other hunters!“

Dean took a deep breath. “Okay. You listening, Sammy? ‘Cause here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna salt and burn some bones, then kick back and have a few beers. Maybe set up a game of pool and see what shakes out.” He tapped his ring against the steering wheel. “C’mon, we’re not exactly storming the Gates of Hell.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.”

The bitterness in Sam’s voice made Dean flinch. He reached forward to rub some invisible dust off the dash. Shit had left them running on empty, was the truth of it. Sam wasn’t wrong. Dean just didn’t know what to do about any of it, other than what he always did, which was to pretend things were fine and keep going. 

“’Look, I get it,” he said. “You’re worried the rain will make your hair do that frizzy thing, right? Remember that date you went on in tenth grade with – what was her name?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Amanda. And it wasn’t a date.”

“Sure it wasn’t,” Dean said easily. “Came back looking like you’d stuck your finger in a socket and locked yourself in the bathroom. Dad had to take the door off its hinges to get you out of there.”

Sam huffed, but the line of his shoulders relaxed slightly. He pushed the door open and climbed out of the car, grimacing when fine needles of rain struck his face. He turned back to Dean. “You coming?”

“Dude, yes. Give me a minute.” With a frown, Dean added, “Shut the door before the seat gets wet.”

They stared at each other. Sam looked as if he wanted to argue, but in the end he just shrugged and turned up the collar of his jacket, slamming the door closed behind him.

Dean waited a few seconds, tracking Sam’s shadow in the rear-view mirror. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, wheezing out a thin breath. His right forearm burnt and twitched as if connected to a heavy-duty battery leaking acid. He kneaded the marked skin through the sleeve of his jacket. 

There was a sharp tap from Sam’s hand against his window. Dean straightened and waved in his brother’s direction, going for casual.

*

_A metaphysical attic, somewhere to the left of reality_

Atropos plucked her knitted vest away from sticky-damp skin, gave it up as a lost cause, and focused her attention on the thick wad of paper pinned to her clipboard. She flicked through its infinite pages. As information storage and retrieval systems went it did, perhaps, lack a certain efficiency. However, while their present circumstances meant measures of economy had been required -

A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of her glasses, lingered for a second, and landed with a suicidal plop on the topmost page.

\- there were limits.

Atropos straightened her shoulders.

“Clotho,” she said, “I thought you submitted a maintenance request.”

“I did, I did,” Clotho protested. Her nimble, if decidedly sausage-shaped, fingers continued feeding yarn through the loom, its gears clacking in endless repetition. “Of course I did.”

Atropos frowned. “I don’t see it listed. What day was this?”

“Tuesday,” Clotho said. “Or was it Thursday? It’s so difficult trying to keep Thor and Tyr straight. The Norse have a lot to answer for.” She thought for a moment. “No, it was definitely Tuesday. I can remember it clear as a bell. Not that bells are often translucent, that I will concede. Now jellyfish on the other hand – nasty, perverted creatures though they may be -” 

“For the love of Zeus, stop your wittering!” Lachesis said. She spoke without looking up from the desk, her body hunched protectively over a large, black calculator. “You’ll misplace someone if you’re not careful and you know how much trouble it caused the last time. Not that anyone Up There is paying attention these days, but -”

“Scissors!” Clotho said. “Scissors, if you please, sister. Quicksticks.”

Atropos sighed. She pulled a pair of scissors from a leather bag fastened around her waist. She examined the threads emerging from Clotho’s loom, selected one, and cut it with a sharp snap of the blades. She gripped the end of the thread between her thumb and forefinger, and pulled it free. The thread wiggled, like a worm trying to escape from the beak of a greedy bird, and fell still. 

“The air conditioning’s still not working,” Atropos said. From millennia of painful experience, she knew all too well there was no such thing as Stating The Obvious when it came to Clotho. “Which form did you fill out? You know they were updated last century.”

“Hmmm, what’s that?” Clotho asked. She tilted her head and peered at the yellow thread Atropos was holding. “You know, I think you’ve ended that life a little too soon, dearest. Just the tiniest bit. A wee smidgen.” 

“Focus on your own job and let me worry about mine,” Atropos said. She consulted her clipboard. “It’s exactly the right length, as always: fatal car accident, right on schedule.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Lachesis, from behind her.

A long, impossibly thin arm snaked its way over Atropos’ shoulder and grabbed the thread out of her hand. Atropos scowled at the curve of Lachesis’ retreating back, muttered something rather rude in Ancient Greek, and refocused her attention on Clotho. “Don’t change the subject. The maintenance form.”

Clotho shrunk back. “Oh, the form. Yes. Well, um. Hmmm. It’s rather difficult to say. I think it was a kind of bluish-green? A thin slip of paper covered in black, squiggly lines and little empty boxes. Green, green, green; the color of sunlight trapped forever inside the sea. Quite lovely, really it was. Or perhaps the color was rather closer to mauve.” She thought about it further and wailed, “Oh, I don’t know!”

Atropos screwed her eyes shut. The headache that had been threatening all day waltzed its way to the base of her skull and readied itself for a somewhat inept, off-off-Broadway performance. Her fingers slid wetly against the handle of the scissors.

It was ridiculous. No one could expect her to work in such conditions. 

Atropos crossed the room, her footsteps echoing against bare wooden floorboards. She pushed aside rows of heavy curtains formed from individual threads, no two the same length or color. Metal filing cabinets stretched out along one of the attic’s sloping walls. She pulled the drawer of the nearest cabinet open and searched through a series of thick catalogue cards, each imprinted with spiky black letters. 

_Achilles, Bubonic Plague, Camus. A, Chance, Daemons._

She plucked one of the cards free: _Demigod Workers’ Association, ubi spiritus._

She sat down at a table piled high with spools of silken thread and picked up the telephone. “Put me through to someone at the D.W.A. It’s about the air conditioning.” She listened to an anonymous voice drone on the other end, wiping away sweat from her forehead with the back of one arm. 

Clotho’s loom whirred in the background, while Lachesis grumbled quietly to herself.

“Yes, I’ll hold.”

*

Dean shifted his weight against the headstone and watched Sam’s flashlight weave a trail through the cemetery. He ran his hand over the rough surface, coughing a little as whisky burned a familiar trail to his gut. Just enough to take the edge off, he thought, whatever that meant. A stray raindrop worked its way along his neck while low-slung clouds blanketed the sky, threatening more to come. Dean raised his flask and slugged back another mouthful.

_“Smooth as butter, it was. Knife went in straight between my ribs, smooth as butter.”_

_“Get off me! Let me go! Let me -”_

He’d noticed something was wrong when he’d climbed out of the car. There’d been a weak fluttering sensation at the back of his mind, like a whisper of moths formed from white noise. Not enough to really bother him, but still. He’d written it off as some weird inner ear thing and focused on getting the weapons out of the trunk. Sam had gone with his usual; an Ithaca shotgun that’d been kicking around for as long as Dean could remember, its wooden stock rubbed smooth with age. By the time they’d gone back and forth about the merits of iron rounds versus salt a few times, Dean had mostly forgotten about it. 

He’d gone up and over the chain link fence first, Sam waiting behind to throw him the gear. 

As he’d dropped down on the other side Dean had felt a confused wave of anticipation and dread wash over him. It had left him floating for a second, shades of black and grey pin-wheeling at the edge of his vision. The world had snapped back into place when his boots hit the ground, hard enough to sting, and with it had come the voices.

So many voices of the violently dead.

_“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would hurt so much. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.“_

_“Never even heard the bang. Doesn’t seem fair, somehow. I should’ve at least -”_

_“No, Momma, don’t! Don’t, I can’t breathe. Momma!”_

Oh, God.

Dean tried to control his breathing the way John had taught him. The skin of his arm smouldered and flared, caught alight.

“Hey, I think I’ve got something,” Sam called.

Dean shoved the flask into his back pocket. He picked up the shovel and headed for Sam, not quite breaking into a jog. A duffel holding lighter fluid and bags of salt bounced against his shoulder, while overgrown grass slapped out a separate rhythm against his legs. The voices clung to him for a moment before drifting away. Dean felt a surge of relief, even as a part of him wanted to hold that last one close. Gift her with the only thing that he could and let her stay.

Sam was standing beside a modest plot off the main path, shotgun propped casually against one leg. His flashlight illuminated a piece of color-coded, A-4 paper. He looked up at Dean and raised his eyebrows. 

Dean ignored the silent question and cleared his throat, struggling to keep his voice normal. “You find it?” 

“Not exactly,” Sam said, after a long pause. “The map has this guy on the north side, only the burials over there are all too recent.” He studied the paper again and marked a spot with his index finger. “But the graves sort of circle out from this point here, right?” 

Dean leaned in for a look. “Which is a big empty nothing.”

“Yeah. Seems kind of strange. I mean, space is usually an issue with cemeteries that’ve been around this long. It’s the kind of thing you’d do if -”

“– there was something you didn’t want people to know about,” Dean finished. “Let’s check it out.”

They ditched the gravelled path and hiked uphill through scraggy pines to the other side of the cemetery, not saying much. The ground sucked at their feet, softened by the rain. A few minutes later, the incline levelled out into a wide clearing. The graves there were older and gave an impression of having been laid out at random, as though someone had wandered around for a bit, gotten bored, and just started digging. A tree with heavy, drooping branches stood off to one side in a patch of coarse grass. A gust of wind made its branches sway and creak, set loose a shower that reminded Dean of bursting spores. 

Sam consulted the map again and nodded at the tree. “I think that’s it.”

“Better be,” Dean muttered, scraping his boots together to try and dislodge clumps of mud. He gave up with a sigh. “One way to find out,” he said. “C’mon.”

They walked over.

Sam swept his flashlight around the tree in a slow arc to reveal a series of conjoined slabs half sunk into the ground. They were covered in gnarled roots and seemed to push up against each other at awkward angles, as if jostling for space. The torso of an angel whose face had long since worn away lay in one corner. It stared up at them with blind benevolence, the kind that always started out fine before turning bad. Dean curled a lip. 

“Family couldn’t have ponied up for a nice gargoyle or something?”

Sam circled the slabs, scuffing decayed leaf litter away with his foot. “Huh,” he said.

“What?”

“I think -” Sam broke off, his eyebrows knitting. 

“Just spit it out already.”

“Um. So, I don’t think it’s a grave so much as a crypt. And I’m guessing that -” Sam gestured at a rusted grille overlaying a smaller bed of stone at the front “- is the way in.”

Dean slid the duffel off his shoulder and dropped it onto the ground. “Of course it is. Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Dude, this was your idea.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Dean flexed his fingers around the handle of the shovel, testing its weight, and pushed past Sam. 

He scraped tightly packed soil out from between the stone joins, applying pressure from his boot to slice through the roots. A cloying stench filled the air as arterial sap spurted and started to ooze, coating the shovel’s tongue. 

Dean retreated a step and gave the shovel a hard flick.

“Hey!” Sam protested, as thick strands splattered across his jeans. He scowled at Dean. “Jerk.”

“Oops,” Dean said. “Snooze and you lose.”

“You know that doesn’t make any sense, right? I swear, you don’t even hear yourself.” Sam looked down and rolled his eyes. “Great, now I’ll smell like eau de grave.”

Dean dropped into a crouch, covering his nose with the back of one arm to try and block out the smell. He examined the sap. In the shadows, it could almost have been mistaken for motor oil. “Grab the salt,” he said, getting to his feet.

Sam muttered something he didn’t catch, but returned moments later holding out a bag of rock salt. Dean took it and poured a liberal amount over the slab. The sap bubbled, air pockets bursting open like wounds, and dissolved in a cloud of greasy smoke.

“Ectoplasm?” Sam asked. He shifted slightly, unsettled. “That’s one pissed off ghost.”

“Looks like,” Dean agreed. He handed the bag of salt back to Sam. “Uh, you might want to put some of that on your legs, man.” Ignoring Sam’s indignant cry, he picked up the shovel and muttered, “Let’s do some damage.”

Two hard, jabbing blows and the ancient padlock on the grille smashed in half. Disappointing was what it was, Dean decided, pulling the lock loose and rubbing rust from his hands. Not enough to even work up a sweat. 

He tossed the shovel to one side. “Wanna give me some help here?”

Dean positioned himself next to Sam and tightened his grip on the metal grille. “Count of three,” he said. 

They heaved, the muscles in Dean’s back twinging in protest. The stone slid open with a grinding groan that sent him stumbling backwards. A hand shot out to steady him. Dean barely had time to register its presence before Sam let go again, flashlight focused on the rectangular entrance. 

A stairwell lead down, into the waiting darkness. 

Dean met Sam’s eyes briefly and nodded. 

Sam tucked the flashlight beneath his arm and checked the shotgun’s side release. He glanced at Dean, before heading down the stone stairs. Dean shouldered the duffle and followed. 

The stairwell spiralled sharply in a continuous loop, muffling his footsteps. He stopped abruptly, eyes unfocused, and stood listening. For a moment, Dean thought he’d imagined it. Then a cacophony of voices slid through him, mouth breathing warnings of fear and rage. His body gave a convulsive shudder that stole the air from his lungs and puckered his skin into gooseflesh.

The voices vanished as quickly as they’d appeared.

Dean’s chest worked, remembering how to breathe. He gave his head a hard shake to clear it and continued the descent. The flashlight that meant _Sam_ flickered somewhere beneath him, throwing elongated shadows against the wall. Dean drew a .45 from his waistband, stroking the trigger for comfort. 

“Sam?”

“…huge. He must have been loaded. Turn…kind of chamber. I think –“

Sam’s voice drifted up towards him in fits and starts, skipping words like a cassette tape left too long on the back seat. Dean concentrated on his brother’s voice and kept moving. A faint crack of thunder reverberated from above, mimicked the pattern of his heart and tricked his ears.

His feet skidded as the stairs came to a sudden end, threatening to dump him on his ass. The glow of the flashlight had disappeared. He reached out for the wall, trying to orientate himself, and recoiled at the touch of moist roots. They seemed to writhe and pulse with slick heat, organic veins flayed clean of skin. 

_“But you like that, don’t you, little Grasshopper. I can tell. I could always tell. Let’s play.”_

“Shut up,” Dean muttered, and scrubbed his hand across the front of his jacket.

Something moved up ahead in the dark. 

Dean raised his gun, thumbing off the safety. His finger started to curl around the trigger, was a hair’s breadth from pressing down when a blinding light struck his face. Dean blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision. The scene resolved into a low tunnel with Sam standing at one end, the flashlight now directed at the ground. 

“Dean, what the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing.” 

The word spoke itself before he could stop it. 

“Nothing,” Sam repeated. His jaw clenched. 

Dean loosened his grip on the gun and told himself again that everything was fine; that he hadn’t come close to shooting Sam. Not really. That the Mark hadn’t burned in protest when he’d lowered his arm, and that it didn’t make him want to puke. He avoided Sam’s eyes and started walking, heard Sam’s footsteps fall into step behind him. He cleared his throat.

“We getting close?”

“Yeah.” 

“Don’t strain yourself with all that detail.”

“Looks like it opens up in about another hundred feet. Dean –“

“I ever tell you ‘bout that time Pastor Jim caught Caleb doing this goth chick in the church?” Dean asked. “Panties hanging off the altar, the whole nine yards. Blew a gasket, man.”

Sam grunted. “Can we not be talking about this.”

“Never could work out if she screamed that loud from the fright of Jim storming in, or ‘cause by the time he found them Caleb had his tongue wrapped good and tight around her cl -“ 

“You’re disgusting.”

“Don’t judge, Sammy, ain’t nice.” Dean conjured up a smirk that felt almost real. “Wouldn’t hurt for you to loosen up a bit. When’s the last time you saw some action other than your hand?” 

“When did you?” Sam said.

Neither of them said much after that.

They stepped out of the tunnel and into a space that was larger than Dean had been expecting, if the echoes were anything to judge by. Colder, too. His breath turned the air white, as though winter had sensed a kindred spirit and hooked its claws in for the duration. “Guess this is it.” He squinted, trying to make out a large shape as Sam’s flashlight flittered about. “Hey, quit it with the disco lighting.”

“Wait a second,” Sam muttered. 

Dean heard the flickering rasp of a lighter and an ancient wall lamp flared to life, painting Sam’s face with a sickly glow. Dean dropped the duffle and rubbed his arm through his jacket, succumbing to another shiver. Pillars carved with flying souls lined the walls and disappeared into the shadowed ceiling. A white, stone tomb dominated the center of the room. It came up past his waist, a life-sized effigy stretched out in scowling slumber across the lid. Dean let out a low whistle.

“Well that’s not creepy at all.”

Sam rifled through the duffle and pulled out an EMF meter. He tossed it over. “See if you can get a reading.”

Dean turned the device over in his hands a few times, something tightening up uncomfortably beneath his ribs. He pretended to adjust the settings and forced himself to listen. Nothing. Relaxing slightly, he thumbed the meter on. It crackled with background static as he circled the room, but other than the odd spike it didn’t reveal anything interesting. 

“Nada,” Dean said. “Our guy’s playing hard to get.”

Sam squatted next to the tomb. He rubbed away dust and dirt to reveal an inscription chiselled on one side. Dean leaned over his shoulder, angling for a better look.

_Here lyes the body of Ezekiel Waldo Wallace_

_1833 - 1892_

_He was a bright wandering star for whom blackness was reserved_

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What’d you say we crack this puppy open.”

*

“No, next week is not acceptable,” Atropos snapped into the telephone. “No. No, I appreciate you’re understaffed at present, but you should have thought about that before the latest management reshuffle. Heaven only has itself to blame.”

A voice crackled through the phone line.

“I don’t think you understand the seriousness of the situation. I am sweating. Sweating through my pores! We need the air conditioning fixed immediately. And since you appear to have the retention span of a defective, single cell organism, let me remind you. Workplace regulations clearly state that as a Class Three Supernatural Entity, I am entitled to – hello?“ 

The only answer was a dial tone. Atropos threw the phone onto the desk with a snarl of frustration.

“Told you it’d be a waste of time,” Lachesis said. “World’s going to Hades in an amphora. No standards anymore, that’s the problem.”

Clotho looked up from the loom and made a face. “It’s not as bad as all that, surely it’s not. If only you hadn’t been quite so abrupt just now, Atropos, dear.”

“And if someone had filed the necessary paperwork there wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place!” 

Atropos pushed away from the table and stood up. Her chair teetered on two legs and crashed backwards. 

Clotho jumped at the sound. 

She clasped the shuttle to her heaving bosom, even as her foot rocked against the treadle in a paroxysm of nervous excitement, faster and faster. Random lengths of yarn slithered into the loom, pulled from a seemingly endless number of plastic bins on the floor. Within moments a mess of tangled knots had formed, unintended destinies weaving themselves into existence. The loom shuddered and gave a tortured, splintering groan. 

“Help!” Clotho cried in panic, peddling even faster. “Heeeelp!”

Before either Atropos or Lachesis could move to intervene, the loom gave a final loud crack and juddered to a stop.

There was a shocked silence.

Atropos approached the loom, her footsteps faltering as she drew closer. Its jaws were jammed with disordered threads, time and the events within it forming patterns that defied common sense and reason, if not physics. She gave one of the threads an experimental tug. It reared back and tried to peck her fingers, but didn’t budge. 

It was one thing, Atropos thought, to go on strike as an expression of ontological disquiet and entirely another to be faced with the possibility of long-term unemployment. She’d seen the queue at Heaven’s Department of Labor, and it bore a startling resemblance to the line for Hell, only longer. Not to mention that their current accommodation – while leaving much to be desired – was part of a contractual package. They’d be evicted. While Lachesis may be content to settle down in a cave with Scylla and snack on the occasional passing sailor, Atropos had no intention of joining her. And then there was -

She pointed an accusing finger at Clotho. “You!”

“Me?” Clotho said. “It’s not my fault. I‘m sure you must be mistaken. Not that I blame you, dearest. No, not at all. Thoughts can be such slippery things, you know. Rather like jellyfish, although quite different from bells.” She hid the shuttle behind her back and blinked rapidly, her eyes wide. “Why, I wasn’t even here when the incident happened. I’m sure I don’t know anything about it.” 

Pushed beyond the limits of her endurance, Atropos launched herself towards Clotho, hands reaching for her sister’s throat. Clotho shrieked and toppled sideways off her stool. There was a flash of silver. Atropos howled as something slapped down hard across her knuckles and drew back, hands now cradled protectively against her chest. 

“Hopeless nitwits, the pair of you,” said Lachesis, brandishing a long metal ruler. “Worse than Echo and Narcissus.” She sniffed loudly and straightened the sleeves of her threadbare, black cardigan. “I suggest we focus our efforts on remedying the situation before it devolves any further.”

Clotho scrambled to her feet and nodded vigorously. “That’s just what I was saying. Yes, yes indeed.”

Atropos growled. 

“Enough!” Lachesis said. She pointed her ruler at the loom. “Get to work.”

After a baleful look at Clotho, Atropos turned her attention to the loom. She started trying to untangle the mis-woven lives and pull them free. Lachesis joined her, followed by Clotho. They worked in silence, fingers twisting and unravelling. 

“Got one,” said Lachesis.

She held up a thread and set it carefully to one side.

Clotho beamed. “Well done, sister!” She tugged at a thread that was a particularly bilious shade of puce. It sprang free and curled lazily around her wrist. “Oh, look! Look! I have one, too. Isn’t it pretty? And so well behaved. Or do I mean trained? You know -” Clotho lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper - “I’ve been reading a terribly naughty book about that very thing. I’m not sure if I quite _understand_ it, mind. It’s the epic tale of a mortal cursed by the Gods and transformed into a monster known as a “Christian Grey”. And the Christian Grey –“

Atropos ground her teeth and continued working.

*

“No dice. Thing weighs a ton,” Dean said, panting slightly.

He leaned his elbows against the lid of the tomb and thumped a fist against the effigy’s stone chest, wishing it was flesh that knew how to bruise. The lid had shifted a few inches and refused to move any further, as if stuck fast with quick drying glue. Putting one eye to the gap, Dean caught a brief flash of something pale nestled inside. Maybe bones or the remnants of a shroud. He startled and pulled back as the darkness roiled and surged up towards him, somehow more alive than it should have been. 

“Looks like Zeke’s taking a nap,” Dean said. He made a show of rubbing his hands together. “Barbeque time.”

Sam gave him an odd look, but settled for, “Yeah, okay.” He turned and headed across the room. “I’ll get the gear.” 

A shadow with beady eyes scuttled along the floor.

Dean swallowed down a flare of satisfaction as the steel toecap of his boot connected with warm blood and fragile bones. The rat travelled through the air and hit the wall next to Sam with a thud, dropping onto the ground near his feet. 

“I hate those things.” 

“Yeah, I’m getting that,” Sam said. He frowned and took a step back. 

“What?” Dean demanded. “Oh, now you’re the poster boy for PETA? It’s a rat, Sam. You ask me, killing the little plague carriers is a civic duty. Right up there with voting.”

“But you don’t vote,” Sam said. “You’ve never even registered.”

“Nope.” 

“And the disease thing’s a myth. Rats don’t –“ Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Okay. You know what, let’s just finish the job and get out of here.” 

“Fine with me, Dian Fossey.”

Sam ignored him. He picked up a bag of salt and pulled it open. His face scrunched up.

“Poppy seeds.”

“Seriously? That’s the best you can do?” Dean rolled his eyes. “I swear to God, you’ve gotta stop watching the Hallmark channel. I mean, I get it. Insomnia’s a bitch, but -”

“Yes. No. That’s not –“ Sam poured a stream of what should have been salt into a cupped hand. Thousands of tiny, black seeds pooled on his palm and trickled between his fingers. He looked at Dean with wide eyes. “Poppy seeds.”

Dean opened another bag and peered inside. Same deal. 

“What the hell?”

Sam unscrewed the cap on the lighter fluid and sniffed. He ran a finger around the rim, lifting it cautiously to his lips. His eyebrows rose. 

“Uh. So, the good news is it’s still oil. Which means it should burn okay. Probably.”

“And? Hit me.”

“It’s made of olives?”

“That’s…a thing.” 

Dean dropped the bag of seeds and scanned the room. Aside from another rat creeping along the edge of the tomb, nothing stood out. His feet shuffled, anxious to start moving. “What are you thinking? Trickster?”

“Maybe,” Sam said. He shrugged, uncertain. “They’re obviously big on the whole mischief thing. But why swap out the salt and lighter fluid? I don’t know, man. Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

Dean felt a burst of useless anger. “Thanks, college boy,” he snapped. “Gold star for stating the obvious. Good to know your time at Stanford wasn’t a complete waste.”

Sam stiffened in a way that made Dean hurt. 

The words echoed inside his head. To drown them out, Dean tried to think about stupid shit instead. It didn’t work. One more addition to the Winchesters’ greatest hits, Dean thought, where the good times knocked you down with a swift right hook and kept right on rolling. 

“Dean.”

He felt an insistent tug on his arm and blinked. Sam was staring past him, straight at the tomb. Dean turned and followed his gaze. Rats were crawling across the effigy and each other, their tails twining together. He watched as more emerged from beneath the lid. The room echoed with a high-pitched, chittering _scritch_ that set his teeth on edge.

“This Wallace guy’s been dead for a century, right?” Sam said quietly.

“Yeah? Give or take.”

“So, what are they doing here?” Sam gestured at the rats. “They’re scavengers. If there’s nothing left in here but bones, what are the rats eating?”

There was a moment’s hollow silence.

The lid of the tomb lifted a foot into the air and crashed back down, cracking in half. Dust billowed, followed by a stench of viscera and decay. Sam gagged. The smell wafted towards them warm and thick, like bodies roasting beneath a sun bearing witness to the zombie apocalypse, threatening to burst open. 

Dean pulled his gun, wondering why he’d ever let it go. Adrenaline kicked his pulse up a few notches and then another, set it thrumming. The Mark blazed, replacing keyed up frustration with something sharp and true. He was aware of Sam aiming the shotgun barrel into the shadows and moving with him, shoulders brushing as they took up a defensive position in one corner of the room, nearest to the door. Cold sweat dampened the fine hairs at the nape of Dean’s neck. 

A skeletal hand covered in ribbons of gangrenous skin appeared over the edge of the tomb, groping for purchase. Something with too many joints pulled itself out, slithering wetly down the stone surface and onto the floor. 

Sam sucked in a breath. “What the fuck is that?”

“Damned if I know,” Dean said. He smiled. “But we’re gonna have fun killing it.”

The thing scented the air and jerked towards them. It opened what remained of its mouth, revealing rows of hooked teeth, and screamed.

Dean took a step forward, braced himself to counter the recoil, and started firing. There was a deafening crack from behind him as Sam’s gun discharged, the first shot immediately followed by another. The creature took a series of hits, the impact throwing it back against the tomb. It stayed down for a few seconds and then blurred to the other side of the room, slithering up the wall.

Whatever the fucker was, Dean thought, finger dancing on the trigger, it was fast.

He reloaded and flicked a hand at Sam, signalling for him to circle around. They moved along the perimeter of the room in opposite directions, keeping their guns trained on the creature.

“Now,” Dean bellowed.

The creature’s shriek was buried under a barrage of gunfire. It streaked along the wall and launched itself forward, landing on all fours on the tomb in the center of the room. Its jaws worked and sprung open, dislocating like a snake trying to swallow the world. A lump of flesh slid out and licked an oozing strip around its mouth. The creature swivelled its head, eyeless sockets staring at Dean.

 _“Hun-grrry.”_ The moan took root and blossomed inside Dean’s head, inhuman tendrils burrowing up through the base of his skull. He felt something warm and wet against his lips. Tasted iron. The room warped around him, sliding into a black space of want that kept growing. _“Hun-gry. Hun-grrry.”_

 _Jesus Christ,_ Dean thought weakly. _Christ and all the saints I’ve never prayed to._

“Down!” Sam yelled.

Dean didn’t so much move as let his knees collapse. He felt something fly past his shoulder and hit the ground hard. The wall behind him shattered, showering him with fragments of brick. He looked up, disorientated. The thing was stalking towards Sam, slower now and more deliberate. He saw Sam inching back towards the tunnel, the stock of his shotgun raised high like a club.

Out of shells. 

Dean got one leg under himself and pushed to his feet. His gun sparked, spitting out a steady spray of bullets. They slowed the thing down some, but not enough. The exposed bones of its ribcage glistened in the dim light, something that might have been organs dragging behind it across the floor. The creature picked up speed, attention still fixed on Sam, and readied itself to spring. 

Yelling at Sam to run, Dean kept firing and charged straight at it.

*

Atropos sighed and studied the loom, rubbing her nose with the edge of her sleeve. Her fingers ached.

After many long and tedious hours, they’d managed to release all but a few of the threads. One was proving particularly stubborn, refusing all of her efforts to work it free. It was an attractive shade of red, she thought, although the random streaks of black and grey made her slightly uneasy. Atropos frowned, struck by a feeling that she’d seen the thread before. She picked it up, tightening her grip as it made a futile attempt to escape. 

“Why do you look so familiar?” she muttered. 

“Here, give it to me,” Clotho said. She elbowed Atropos in the ribs and reached for the thread. “I’m sure you mean well, sister. Yes, indeed. But you’ve been working on that knot without success for quite some time now.”

“Don’t push!” Atropos snapped, and shoved back.

“Why, I never!” Clotho said. 

She brought the heel of her shoe down on Atropos’ foot, grinding it into the floor for added effect. Atropos squealed and tried to wrest the thread away from her sister’s thieving hands. After watching the skirmish for a few moments, Lachesis threw her own arms into the air, succumbed to the inevitable, and joined in.

“Let go!”

”Ow! My nose! My nose!”

“Stop it, you fools!”

“She started it!”

“I said STOP IT!”

“It’s mine! Mine, mine, mine!”

Yanked this way and that, the red thread stretched and began to fray.

*

Dean lowered his right shoulder to absorb the impact and crashed into the creature with a sideways tackle. The momentum carried them both across the floor and into one of the stone pillars with a sickening _smack_. Dean felt claws slice down his back, and then the thing had him pinned, ravenous jaws latching onto his shoulder. Something cracked. He aimed a desperate blow at the side of its head, but the angle was wrong and…

Sam was yelling.

 _What part of ‘go’ was so difficult to understand, Sam? Never did like taking orders._

He blinked, wondering when it had gotten so damn dark.

*

“Miiiine!”

Clotho held the thread out of reach above her head. The much-abused thread promptly snapped in two. One piece remained stuck in the loom, while the other thrashed wildly for a few seconds, before going limp. Clotho dropped the broken thread with a cry of horror.

“Well, that’s torn it,” said Lachesis, and cackled loudly at her own joke.

Atropos bent her glasses back into shape and put them on. She squinted at the thread. Where do I know you from, she thought. Tartarus, Titan, Titanic – She froze as it hit her. Her stomach dropped, rebounded slightly, and came to a stop somewhere down around her knees. 

“Clotho,” she said, with a certain fragile calm. “Please tell me that’s not who I think it is.”

“That’s difficult to say,” Clotho said. Her gaze darted around the attic. “I’m not a _mind reader_ , after all. It’s quite impossible to guess what you might be thinking, really it is. You’ve always been so clever and quick, Atropos, dear. Although – and I’m sure you won’t mind me saying so – a little judgmental at times. Why, I recall when Patroclus arrived at the gates of Troy –“ She sighed, a red flush creeping slowly across her chest. “Such a handsome young man. All those gleaming muscles, you know. And his _thighs_ -“

“Be quiet,” Lachesis said. She crouched down and poked the broken thread with her ruler. It didn’t move. “Unmistakable, I’m afraid. Recognize that color combination anywhere.” She smacked her lips together. “Winchester.”

The Fates stared at the broken thread which only moments before had been the storied life of Dean Winchester, righteous man and monster hunter extraordinaire.

Clotho burst into tears.

“Clotho! Stop that caterwauling at once,” Lachesis demanded. “What’s done is done. There’s nothing to be gained from wallowing in the polluted pond of hysteria. You’ll be mistaken for one of those blasted Seers if you’re not careful.”

“Yes, you’re right, sister. Of course you’re right. Yes, yes, indeed,” Clotho said hoarsely.

Lachesis picked up the thread and salvaged the other piece from the loom. She stretched them out alongside her ruler. “Thirty-seven years, five months, ten hours, fifteen minutes, and sixteen seconds precisely. The Hell bundle is still in storage somewhere, too. We’ll need to include it in the final count, I suppose, although that does seem like rather a lot of work. Interesting conundrum when you think about it. To include or not to include, that’s the question.” She turned away and began to search for a reference manual. “I’m sure there’s a precedent here somewhere.”

“Oh, dear,” Clotho murmured. She looked at Atropos. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not at all, not at all. Oh, that poor young man. It’s most unfortunate, even if his musculature wasn’t quite as well developed as it could have been.” She drew a crumpled, floral handkerchief out from beneath one bra strap, blew her nose, and tucked it away again. “Still,” she added a touch hopefully, “perhaps no one will notice.”

Atropos snorted.

“Of course someone will notice. That busy body in a trench coat certainly will, sooner or later.” She pushed a hand through her damp hair and smoothed it down again. “However, our more immediate concern is the brother. Samuel. I’d rather not wake up to find _him_ camped on our doorstep.”

Clotho paled. “Oh yes, I’d forgotten. The Boy King Who Wasn’t.” She bit her lip. “Do you think he’ll be very cross?”

Atropos and Lachesis exchanged a sideways glance. “Yes,” they chorused, in the best tragic tradition. “Very cross.”

Clotho’s eyes filled with tears. “But surely if we explain it was an _accident_ –“

“For the love of Hera, don’t start that again,” Lachesis said, by now thoroughly exasperated. She shoved Clotho in the direction of a small, wooden table. “Go and sort out the threads we’ve already removed.” 

Clotho shuffled away, despondent. 

“You can finish the loom,” Lachesis told Atropos, “And I’ll deal with Winchester.” Her face darkened. “That family’s been nothing but trouble from day one. Always dead or dying, without a single thought for all the work it causes. No empathy or consideration for others, that’s the problem.” 

Atropos opened her mouth to point out the obvious and closed it again, deciding there was really no point. 

They all set to work.

“What _are_ you doing?” Clotho said, a few minutes later.

Atropos looked up from the loom, a sharp retort poised on the tip of her tongue. She was surprised to find Clotho staring intently at something on the table. She reached over and tugged at Lachesis’ sleeve, trying to get her attention.

“I’ve never seen one of you behave like that before,” Clotho said to the table. “No, not at all.” She beckoned to Atropos and Lachesis. “Come and see.”

The threads they’d rescued from the loom sat in a series of loosely wound balls. All except for a dark green thread, which had unravelled itself and was balanced precariously on the edge of the table. The thread hesitated, as if wondering whether this was really a good idea, and flung itself off. It drifted to the floor and lay there for a moment, stunned. Just as Atropos was beginning to worry they had a second disaster on their hands, the green thread gave a determined wriggle and started to weave its way across the floor.

“Is that the brother?” Atropos asked. 

Clotho nodded. 

She reached down, scooped the thread up, and carried it over to a workbench near the loom. The red thread lay where Lachesis had left it, limp and unmoving. Clotho set the green thread down. It made a beeline for the red thread and tried to push the two pieces together. After nudging them several times and getting no response, the green thread stopped and wove itself tightly around them.

No one spoke.

“Oh!” exclaimed Clotho. She clapped her hands together. “Oh, sisters! I’ve just had a thought!”

Atropos stared at Clotho in blatant disbelief. 

Clotho dug into the pocket of her dress and slapped a sewing kit down on the bench. 

"Now, I must have complete silence while I work. Total quiet, you understand. Utter soundlessness. Imagine if you can, dearest sisters, a noiseless cocoon made from those white cotton balls mortals use for removing fingernail polish. Speaking of which, did you know they’re on sale this week? The cotton balls, that is, not fingernails. Five packs for the price of three, which is a bargain indeed. Why, sometimes –“

“Clotho!” Lachesis barked. 

Clotho pretended to lock her lips together. She opened the sewing kit, took several deep breaths, and reached for the red thread. The green thread startled at the intrusion and reared back. Atropos held it firmly in place while Clotho drew the red thread through the eye of a large darning needle. 

“Just a little sting,” she murmured. “Hold still and it will all be over soon.”

Moving quickly, she stitched the red and green threads together. The green thread stopped struggling after the first few jabs and lay quite still, apart from an occasional, involuntary twitch. Sweat ran down the side of Clotho’s face. Finally, she set the needle down on the bench with a relieved sigh.

“Well, that’s the first step done.”

Lachesis prepared the needle again, this time with the green thread. She handed it wordlessly to Clotho.

Clotho picked up the second piece of red thread. Tongue prodding the inside of her cheek, she pulled the needle back and through. Green stiches appeared in a neat, surgical line. She finished the ensemble with an intricate series of knots so tightly tangled it was difficult to tell where the green thread ended and the red thread began.

She placed them gently on the bench. 

The green thread stirred, wriggling about to investigate its new appendages. Atropos thought she saw the red thread twitch ever so slightly, although it was difficult to tell.

“There’s nothing more I can do,” Clotho said. “Not at all, not at all. We’ll just have to wait and see if the binding takes hold.” She looked at the threads. “You know, if the worst comes to the worst we could hang them on the tree this year as decorations. They really are quite festive.”

“No,” said Lachesis.

“But dearest, just imagine –“

“I am.”

“But –“

“No.” 

“But if we –“

“Let’s finish tidying up,” Atropos interrupted. Privately, she thought Clotho may well have a point for once. As threads went the Winchesters were very attractive. “We’ll need to work at triple time to get back on schedule, and you know the idiot They appointed after Chronos is a stickler.”

Lachesis scowled and muttered her agreement.

“Wait! Before we begin there’s something I really must mention,” Clotho said. “Yes, indeed. It’s been weighing on my mind all morning.”

Lachesis and Atropos turned to face her, apprehensive. 

Clotho clasped her hands piously in front of her chest. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, dearest sisters, what with all the recent excitement, but it’s really very warm in here. Do you think the setting for the air conditioning’s quite right?”

*

“Hey, Dean. Dean?”

Dean frowned, wondering why Sam wouldn’t let him sleep. “S’go way,” he muttered. “Sleep.”

“No, no more sleeping. You’ve gotta wake up.”

Dean felt knuckles rubbing against his chest and reached out to push them away. White hot fury exploded through his shoulder. He moaned and curled in on himself, trying to escape it. When the movement only made things worse he started to panic, ribs creaking as he sucked in shallow breaths.

“Oh, fuck! Shit, sorry. Sorry. Slow your breathing down, okay? Try not to move. Dean, slow breaths.”

He focused on Sam’s panicked babbling and let the sound ground him as he rode it out. The pain gradually dipped to a level he could make sense of, more steady grind than pokers gouging at his body from the inside. Dean cracked his eyes open. He swallowed a few times and tried to work up some spit. Something prodded his mouth. He closed his lips around it, grumbling when the straw disappeared after only a few sips.

Sam’s pinched face swam into view. 

“Docs?”

“Yeah, you’re in the hospital, Dean.”

“You ‘kay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Mmmmm.”

Dean let himself drift while the drugs worked themselves out of his system. 

The skin around the IV in his hand began to itch. He thought vaguely about pulling it out, or maybe asking Sam to do it for him, but it all seemed too hard. Confused scenes of playing pool in a cemetery skipped through his mind. Sam sat cross-legged on a headstone, reading a book, while Jim chased Caleb back and forth between the graves squirting him with holy water. 

When he woke up for the second time, Dean was sore and cranky. The room was dim, light spilling from the doorway of what he thought might be a small bathroom. He craned his head forward, trying to assess the damage. His upper body was wrapped in a sea of white bandages, right arm hidden somewhere beneath them, strapped tight to his chest.

“Your shoulder is pretty messed up.” 

Dean looked over to find Sam sitting in a vinyl chair a few feet away, mouth pressed into a narrow line. He half-expected Sam to rush over and start hovering again, but it didn’t happen. Sam’s gaze collided briefly with his and flicked away.

“Collar bone?” Dean muttered.

“Yeah. It’s a complete break, but the doctors think it’ll heal okay without pins. Shouldn’t be any nerve damage.” Sam shifted and ticked items off against his fingers. “Stitches in your shoulder, a bunch more on the left side of your back, and some cracked ribs. They gave you a few bags of blood and right now they’re worried about infection, so leave the IV alone.”

“Huh,” Dean said. “They say when I can get out of here?”

“Few days.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen. What time is it?”

“Late.” Sam didn’t check his watch. “Or early by now, I guess.”

Dean nodded. 

A trolley clattered past the room, voices calling out urgent instructions over the steady wail of machines. The noise gradually faded, leaving them in silence. He looked over at Sam, surprised to find him white knuckling the arms of the chair. Dean cleared his throat.

“Did you get it?”

“What?”

“The - whatever that thing was. You take it out?”

“No.”

He waited for Sam to continue. When he didn’t, Dean said, “Jesus, Sam. Gimme something to work with here.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Sam snapped. “One minute it was chowing down on you and then it was just…gone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Gone, as in no longer present. Departed. Disappeared. Vanished.”

“Ok-ay,” Dean said. He could remember the creature clawing its way out of the tomb and firing at it, but everything after that was a dumb blur. “And then what?”

Sam shrugged and stared at the floor. “Nothing. Dragged you out of there and called 911.”

“From the cemetery?”

“Yeah. Reception was shit.”

Dean winced, starting to get why Sam was in such a mood. He could count the number of times one of them had needed to make a call like that on a single hand, and it always sucked.

“Guess the long-term residents don’t have much use for cell phones,” he said, and immediately regretted it. Sam pinned him to the bed with a glare. Dean looked away, hand plucking at the over-starched bedsheets. “Was a close thing, huh?

Sam gave a mirthless chuckle. “You could say that. If the police come back, we were paying our respects to Grandma when you were attacked by a wild dog.”

Dean chewed his lip, uncertain how to respond. He was usually pretty good at getting a read on Sam, but something about his brother was off right now. Way off. It left Dean feeling edgy. Yeah, so the hunt had gone sideways on them, but that happened sometimes. If everyone made it out, then you chalked it up to experience and took the win. 

He watched Sam from beneath half-closed eyes, trying not to be obvious about it. Somewhere along the way Sam’s usual flannel had been replaced with a grey sweatshirt. It was too small, the sleeves cutting off to leave his wrists and hands stranded. Dean swallowed. Given Sam’s comment about the blood, he had a fair idea of how the sweatshirt had come about. One of Sam’s legs was jittering up and down, running a race all on its own. Dean felt anxious just looking at it. 

“You okay?”

“What?” Sam said, blankly. He lifted his chin as if daring Dean to argue. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s good.” Dean took in the shadows beneath Sam’s eyes and tried again. “Just you look a bit rough, dude. Maybe we could get one of the nurses to check you out when they do their rounds or whatever.” He turned his head carefully to the side, scanning the bank of medical equipment beside the bed. “There’s probably a buzzer here somewhere. I could -” 

“Shut up.”

Dean blinked. “What the hell is your -“

“Just shut up!”

“Okay,” Dean said quietly. So much for that. He forced himself to relax back against the bed, his body complaining at the movement. There was a drawn-out silence. After staring at the oatmeal colored wall for a while, Dean shifted his gaze back to Sam. He sighed.

“Sammy.”

It was like a dam bursting its banks after too much rain, dirty water sweeping away everything in its path.

“You died.” Sam stood up and pushed the chair away, sent its metal legs skittering backwards across the floor. “The EMTs couldn’t get the bleeding under control. Doctors wouldn’t let me into the room, made me wait the fuck outside, but I could hear what was going on.” His hands clenched into fists. “They’d already called it when your heart just, I dunno. Started up on its own or something, I guess.” Sam turned away and stared out of a small, rectangular window set high on the wall. “You died,” he said again.

When a tremor rocked Sam’s shoulders, Dean closed his eyes and gave him some space. Let him get it out. 

After a few minutes, he heard Sam walk across the room and disappear into the bathroom. Dean blinked, feeling shaky. He’d been the one to insist on the hunt and now – he was so fucking stupid, sometimes. The ache in his chest flared as he blew out a hard breath. John had always made it look easy, like he knew what to do. Now here Dean was, tilting straight at forty, and most days he didn’t have a clue. Just kept kicking like crazy, trying to keep them both afloat, and hoped it would be enough.

The bathroom door swung open. Sam looked better, Dean thought, giving him a quick once-over. Not okay, ‘cause that would take some time. But better. 

Sam snagged a thin blanket off the end of the bed. He wrapped it tightly around his shoulders and sank down into the chair. 

“Surprised they haven’t thrown you out already,” Dean said.

“I think the staff are, um. Sort of avoiding me? It’s probably why no one’s been in to check on you for a while. Things got a bit heated when –“ Sam broke off, spots of color appearing high on his cheekbones. “Before.”

Dean got that, would have responded the same way. Using his good arm, Dean worked one of the pillows out from under his head and tossed it weakly in Sam’s direction. It hit the side of the bed and tumbled off. “Kick me and you’re sleeping on the floor.”

Sam reached down and picked up the pillow, twisting it back and forth between his hands.

“Dean -”

“Sam.”

Sam huffed. He stood up and unlaced his boots, toeing them off. He walked around to the other side of the bed and put the pillow down next to Dean’s feet. “You need help shifting over?” 

Dean made a face. He thought about saying no, but he was hurting in a way that made breathing seem like a contact sport. Besides, fainting would just be embarrassing and freak Sam out. “Yeah,” he grunted. 

Sam shifted the IV pole and untucked the bedsheets, grabbing hold of one side. “Count of three,” he said, and slowly tugged Dean across the bed. 

Once Dean was re-settled, Sam squeezed himself onto the edge of the mattress so they were lying head to toe, the way they had as kids when the money only stretched far enough for one motel room and two beds. Sam wrapped the blanket back over his chest, legs sticking out into the air.

“Dude, you are so burning those socks,” Dean said. He pretended to cough, groaning as it sent pain reverberating across his chest and down through his back. “Oh, fuck me that hurts.”

“Then don’t be a smartass.”

Dean cracked a smile.

Sam snuffled into the pillow, trying to get comfortable. The sound drove Dean all kinds of crazy when they were stuck in the same motel room together, night after night, but he kind of missed it now they’d set up digs in the Bunker. Not that he’d be telling Sam that, of course. He stared at the ceiling and tried to count the tiles, unable to switch his thoughts off. 

“Sam?”

“Hmmm?”

“We’ve gotta get the Mark off me, man.”

There was a long silence, before Sam said quietly, “Yeah, I know.” He patted Dean’s leg through the sheet and wrapped a hand around his ankle, hanging on. “We’ll start working on it tomorrow, okay? Put some feelers out. Right now, just try to get some rest and –“ 

“ - take the win,” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “That.”


End file.
